Reconcilable Differences
by Selene Sokal
Summary: Yang and Blake were total opposites in every regard, but none of their differences ever seemed to really matter—if anything, they made things better! So, of course, when they get an apartment together and Yang tells Blake she wants to get a dog, this'll work out perfectly fine, right? College AU


**After reading Pyrosi's "Superstition," it got me thinking about how Yang's a dog person and what that might mean for her relationship with Blake.**

* * *

The last of the boxes had been placed. It had taken a lot of work, a lot of reliance on Nora's brute strength and how easy it was to bully Jaune into doing things, but it was finished. Things still needed to be unpacked and Yang was constantly trying to remember in which box to look for what thing, but… they were moved in.

They were moved in together.

She shuddered a little. In involuntary shudder, but… not a bad one. It felt weighty, mature, like this was a real accomplishment. Like she had just made a big step on the road to adulthood. She'd moved before, she'd lived with other people before, but those were roommates or family. This was… she lived with her girlfriend now. They had a place for themselves.

And it was a real achievement! Finding a place that suited the both of them had been _hard_. Yang was used to negotiating their differences—it really seemed that the fact that the two of them were pure opposites only made their relationship _better_—but finding a place that was near a library, coffee shops, the good bar scene, both of their jobs, in a neighborhood that was quiet, but also had plenty of activity—it had nearly driven them _crazy_.

But the little place they did find somehow, miraculously, seemed to work out for the both of them with almost no conflicts. She gazed outside the window, looking at the sun setting over the park across the street, a few birds chirping and people leaving with now-emptied picnic baskets. This place was _perfect_.

Now that all their friends were out (they'd promised to invite them back for a housewarming party once they felt settled in), she walked over to her girlfriend, pulled her into her arms and gave her a deep kiss.

Blake gave her a playful swat and giggled, the sort of levity she'd never have expected from the quiet, studious girl she'd first met Freshman year. "Come on, there's time for that later! We still have to unpack!"

"I'm just really happy about this place! I love how close we are to the park, and that view from our window—it's gorgeous! It's so nice to see all the people going about their day, and it's going to be so convenient now that we can finally get a dog."

She had expected Blake to say something, but in the silence, she looked back to her girlfriend, only to find her standing, stunned, with a startled expression. "A… dog."

Ah, yeah, Blake was Blake. But she knew how to handle this. "Don't worry, I know how you feel about dogs. I'd take care of the walking, feeding, any clean up, you don't have to worry about that." Then she gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"A dog."

"Yes Blake," she answered, patiently, "We told Ms. Salem we'd be getting a dog when we signed the lease."

Blake's stare nearly burned a hole through her. "The lease said _pet._ We were getting a _pet._"

"Which means _dog!_" Yang cried out in exasperation. Of course that fight had been avoided too easily. She had thought she'd gotten lucky, that Blake was being surprisingly cool about things. She should have known. "You don't need to sign on the lease that you're getting a cat, or a fish, or… gerbils! That's Renters 101!"

"We didn't talk about a dog, Yang."

"We've talked about a dog a hundred- No," she stopped herself, "We're not doing this. We are going to unpack, and then we are going to order pizza, and we're going to have a _good first day_ moved in together."

Blake nodded to that, and they had been able to get off that topic and switch to chatting about how Sun had been there the whole day without either of them even once seeing him actually working. But the words were out there. The conflict was out in the open, even if they were giving it some time to figure itself out. But there was one thing she knew, though.

She'd be damned if she wasn't getting her dog.

* * *

"Weiss, Ren, thank you for coming."

She sat down with the pair at a nearby tearoom, which, as it turned out, was a place that served tea to be drunk, and not a euphemism for something much raunchier, and more illegal, as she had thought. On one hand she was relieved that the place Blake had been so excited to live walking distance from was something more mundane, on the other, she wouldn't lie: she had been a little curious.

But this was business. She nodded to her friends, then took a deep breath. "To facilitate an orderly decision making process-"

"Those were Blake's words, I'm assuming?"

"No, Weiss, last night I became a nerd. _Obviously_ those were Blake's words! I'm trying to speak your-" she caught herself, "No, it's alright, I'm not getting angry or flying off the handle. I'm coming to you because you're our most Blake-like friends, and she's meeting with Nora and Ruby at the same time, to try to find a way that'll work for both of us, without either of us saying something careless to each other or starting a fight."

Ren looked at her, uneasily, "I am, of course, happy to help, but… is everything alright? You've just moved in together, and now you're calling us to help… negotiate things."

She waved off his concerns. "It's nothing that serious. We're just being smart and not assuming that everything has to be perfect or we're doomed to break up. We expected some tensions in moving together, and we felt it'd be best to have a plan in mind for resolving them."

"That's, um, surprisingly…" Ren seemed to be at a loss for words.

Weiss, though, was happy to help. "Smart. This was also Blake's idea, right?"

She scowled. "Great to know who my friends are in this trying time." She sighed, "No, it's just that I brought up getting a dog, and-"

"You're getting a _dog?_" Weiss, eyes sparkling with a decidedly un-Weiss-like joy, practically leapt up from her seat. "When! Oh, and what breed? Is it going to be a cute fluffy little guy who goes _yip yip yip_, or more of a…" she trailed off as she realized that both Ren and Yang were staring at her in pure, slack-jawed amazement. She sat down in a huff. "I like dogs, okay? I can't live with them because I'm allergic, but I just think they're…" she turned a delightful shade of pink, "really cute."

Well, well, well. The Ice Queen had a softer side, after all. Jaune would pay handsomely for this kind of information… though Weiss would pay even more to make sure nobody learned about it. Especially not Jaune. She could charge extra for that.

Ren, seeming to realize what she was thinking, decided to take the discussion in a different direction. "I take it that Blake does not want a dog, and felt that the matter had already been decided?"

"Sort of…" she fidgeted in her seat, awkwardly, "_I_ thought we'd already made a decision, and I kind of got my hopes up, you know? But I don't want it to become a huge fight and I don't want her to feel like she had to do this to make me happy and end up resenting me for it."

Ren nodded, soberly. Weiss, however, was on her phone, obviously already on the shelter's website and looking at pictures of dogs. So she was probably going to be less than helpful in persuading her to see things Blake's way.

Ren sipped his tea. "Is there a reason Jaune and Pyrrha aren't involved in this plan?"

"They're Plan B," she said, shrugging.

"Plan B?" Weiss looked up skeptically from her phone, the screen filled by an _adorable_ picture of a corgi pup. "What, if you need to kick someone's ass, you've got Jaune, and if you need to get your ass kicked, you've got Pyrrha?"

She snickered at that. "No, but, I do admit, that's actually pretty good idea. But if this isn't helpful, we want them to go with Blake and I to get drinks and try talking it out. That way, they can referee, keep it public and out in the open."

Weiss, back to looking at dogs, replied, "That doesn't make any sense."

Ren nodded, sheepishly, "Yeah, I'm with Weiss on that."

"Alright, fine," she griped, "I really owe Pyrrha and she's been begging me to set her up on a double date with Jaune. Two birds, one stone, _I'm efficient!_"

Ren and Weiss both groaned in annoyance at that. Yang felt a little bad at taking advantage of her friend's not-so-secret infatuation with Jaune, but if Pyrrha wasn't going to make her move, Yang would reap the benefits. Not her problem, really.

Fortunately, Ren was there to try to get them back on track. "So, if I am understanding the plan correctly, you'll be making the argument to us why you'd like to get a dog, and we're supposed to model how Blake might react, correct?"

"Yep!"

"Alright then, make your pitch."

"Thank you, first of all…" and then she trailed off.

Well, this was surprising. She'd kind of assumed that, being someone who _really_ loved dogs, the reason to get a dog would be fairly self evident, that she would immediately launch into one of a hundred arguments for dogs without having to prepare anything, but now that she was actually facing the reality of the situation, she was drawing a blank. It was like asking her why she enjoyed breathing—what was she _supposed_ to say?

Looking around, helplessly, at her friends, she knew she had to say _something_. "Dogs are… cute?"

Ren was about to say something, but Weiss slapped the table with both hands, the tinkling of tiny spoons against porcelain immediately drowned out by her voice, somehow booming, "EXACTLY! Look at this little guy," she shoved her phone into Yang's face, a picture of a puppy sitting in a flower pot bright on the screen, "and tell me Blake wouldn't just love him to death?"

"But perhaps Blake doesn't like dogs because of-"

"Then she can dump her!" Suddenly, Weiss seemed to realize exactly what she had said. "I… may not be an… _objective_ voice in this discussion," she said, slinking down into her chair, red faced.

Ren gave Yang a look of pure mortification, but soldiered on. "Maybe you should talk to Blake about _why_ she doesn't like dogs. Maybe it's personal taste, but maybe it's built on something more serious. It might even be something she doesn't feel entirely comfortable talking to you about, especially if this is something you clearly feel strongly about."

Dammit. She had been hoping for easy vindication, not good and sensible advice for a challenging emotional circumstance! But even as her shoulders slumped, she was grateful for Ren's willingness to lay out the basics so clearly.

"However…" She perked up at that. Ren's "Maybe this is something you feel strongly about for reasons that are as mysterious to Blake as yours are to her. She doesn't know your mind, Yang, no better than you know hers. Think about _why_ you want a dog, or more specifically, why _you_ want a dog—the reasons that are wholly personal to you. Don't think of it as trying to persuade her, think of it as trying to open up a part of your life to the woman you love."

"Wow." There really wasn't much else to say. Ren immediately blushed and looked away as silence came over the table. He was by far their quietest friend, and he had just spoken with a rare passion that made her think some of this "open up a part of your life to the woman you love" talk might have been more self-directed than her supposedly-single friend intended.

Well, no matter who it'd been aimed at, it sounded true. "Thanks, Ren. Seriously. I think that's what I needed to hear. Now, Weiss…" At hearing her name, the white haired girl jolted up from her phone. "Show me some more puppy pics! Don't make me start _hounding_ you!"

Their pained groans really only increased her glee.

* * *

Checking her phone on the way out, she was immediately struck by the avalanche of texts she'd received from Ruby. It seemed she hadn't quite grasped what she was supposed to do here, instead choosing to act as Yang's "spy" rather than being a sounding board for Blake. But she also hadn't done a particularly good job of reporting back to Yang, since she'd sent nearly a hundred messages about every trivial detail that seemed to happen, so maybe it just balanced out. But from skimming, it had seemed that they were more or less at the same place they were last night.

Worse, much like how she hadn't anticipated Weiss being a dog person, it seemed that Nora was a die-hard cat lover, and had spent the whole time praising their many Ren-like qualities. While she'd gotten some good relationship advice from Ren, the entire point of this plan, of testing out their perspectives and arguments on safe ground, had been a total dud.

She was the first to get back to their new apartment, which wasn't surprising—Blake had to run some errands while she was in Ruby and Nora's part of town, but she realized that this was the first time she was alone in the new place. It was something she'd obviously experience many times in the future, but still, it felt... weird. The place seemed unnaturally empty as she plopped herself down on her beat up old couch and got to work on an essay she had due.

She'd actually managed to get a few pages into her analysis of puns in _Much Ado About Nothing_ (what could she say, something about the topic grabbed her) when she heard footsteps in the stairwell. She looked up from her laptop. Was it Blake? She thought that sounded like Blake's light, careful footsteps, but then again, this was a new staircase, and she wasn't sure if it was Blake or one of their neighbors. By now, it was early evening, so she _should_ be coming home around this time.

She heard the sound of a key in their lock and she felt the grin immediately spring up across her face as she closed her laptop. She gave her girlfriend a quick kiss as she entered their place, and got to say, for the first time in their new apartment, "Welcome home, babe."

"You've been waiting to use that line all day, haven't you?"

She grinned. "Can you blame me? I love these little milestones." Blake smiled and gave her another kiss before hanging up her coat. "You hungry?"

"Famished," she said, moving to sit down on the couch, "Forgot to catch lunch when I had the chance after class. Been running on a granola bar I found in my coat pocket. You?"

"I could eat, but, man, I'm just not feeling doing things right now. You want to just order sushi?"

Blake's eyes snapped up at the word, but then, regretfully, her eyes turned downcast. "No, we ordered out last night. I think we have to be…" she shuddered, "responsible."

Yang gave her girlfriend a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Such is life in this bullshit world."

She smiled at the sympathy. "So it is. I think we've got stuff to make pasta if you want to help," she said, getting back up and heading into the kitchen.

Yang followed, getting the water boiling on the stove while Blake pieced through what they had brought over for the pantry. They'd need to go grocery shopping soon—another couple's first! She glanced over her shoulder, watching as Blake tried to sort through the pile of dry goods they'd brought from their old places. "So, had a pretty fun time at the teahouse…"

"Do you believe me now that it's a place that serves tea?"

"Could still be a trick!" she laughed, "Anyways, you'll never guess it, but Weiss _loves_ dogs."

"Really?" Blake raised an eyebrow to that. "What, like, purebred hunting dogs she can use to run down poor people?"

"No- well, I don't specifically know if that's _not_ it, but she seemed pretty enamored," she made a rough estimate of how much pasta to put in the pot, then just dumped the whole box in, "with cute little puppy dogs. Barely even finished telling her about it, and she was already looking up dog pics to show me."

Blake chuckled at the thought. "Hard to picture _her_ doing something so… undignified. Can you imagine her scooping up after her dog on walks?" Yang had to admit, she couldn't. Weiss, if she could keep a dog, probably would have to have people for that.

"Well, I heard that Nora talked your ear off about cats."

"Did you happen to know that," Blake grabbed a pack of mushrooms and some spinach, along with some other indeterminate greens, from the fridge, then started chopping them, "because Ruby was texting you the whole time?"

Unsurprisingly, Blake had noticed that one of the two people she was speaking to was sending 700 text messages. "Let me guess: she thought she was being stealthy."

"Your sister is legitimately too adorable for me to believe you're actually related. But yeah, Nora went off like you wouldn't believe," she grinned, "except I'm 90% sure she was just talking about Ren. Unless you've ever known a cat that 'gives really good advice' on the reg."

Stirring the pasta, Yang's smile got even bigger. "Those two are too damn cute together," she said, thinking of Ren's advice—could it have been something Ren had been thinking about a lot? Was there a possibility of their non-relationship relationship getting more serious in the near future?

Blake, it seems, was thinking the same thing. "But not together-together," she replied with mock-sternness, "It's really hard to believe that, of all our friends, we're the only ones in an actual, official relationship."

Yang laughed. "Are you really that surprised? "

The skillet hissed as Blake dumped the vegetables into it. It was a skillet, right? Or was it a sauté pan? Frying pan? Were those all the same thing? As she stirred the veggies, she looked over to Yang. "Well, from what I heard from Ruby," she dropped her voice, conspiratorially, "I think there's about to be some movement in the Nightmare Love Quadrangle."

"No. Way." Yang was real excited to hear that. The Jaune-Pyrrha-Weiss-Ruby relationship drama hell zone had been an excellent source of gossip that had, unfortunately, seemed to be quieting down, but Blake's news had perked her right up.

"No, _way._ Now that you've moved out, Weiss is looking for someone to take your old room, and you'll never guess who she's asked."

Yang dumped the pasta into the colander, feeling the weight of the pasta strain her wrist as she speculated. "Pyrrha, right? Wait- no, she couldn't—she's got that athlete mentorship thing that keeps her in the dorms. And it _couldn't_ have been Jaune, unless…"

Blake just mouthed, "Your sister," and Yang lost it, almost dropping the noodles laughing.

"Does Weiss even know that Ruby's, you know…"

"Into her?" Blake smirked as she mixed the veggies with the noodles. "Absolutely _certain_ she does not. I don't even think _Ruby_ really knows that."

She watched as Blake scooped up a bowlful of pasta for her and then another for herself. This was… nice. She didn't really have another word for it. Just making dinner together, gossiping about their friends, and just… enjoying being together. It wasn't the ecstatic joy of the honeymoon phase, but it was good. Familiar. Loving. What she felt for Blake was something she hadn't really felt for anyone she'd ever dated before. It was… the way that she could imagine things going on and on like this forever, and she'd be very happy with that.

This, _this_ was what she wanted. More than anything, really. And whatever it took to make her happy, to make her feel comfortable in the home they were creating together… Yang would do it.

* * *

Dinner had been good, and they now had plenty of leftovers packed in three pieces of tupperware they were able to find the right lids for. That would keep them going for the rest of the week, a sentence she had thought and immediately felt like she'd aged a hundred years. After dinner, Blake had retired to read one of her novels while Yang worked on her homework, in the sense that she had the document open to finish her essay while she watched old pro wrestling matches online.

It was a good night, all told. A hint of adulthood, really, even if she was barely in her twenties. Now lying in bed together, Yang on her back, with her arms folded behind her head, and Blake on her side, propping herself up on her pillow. But adulthood meant facing up hard conversations.

She turned over in the bed, staring into her girlfriend's warm, amber eyes. "So. You up to talk about pets now?"

Blake smiled, which was a good sign. "I was going to give you more time to butter me up. Buy me flowers and all."

She gave her a playful shove. "You think I would be so low as to _bribe _you? For shame, Blakey, for shame."

"So, do you want to talk about it? Nora suggested we just, you know, talk about why we think the way we do, just get it out in the open." Oh, did she? Yang wondered if she and Ren had compared notes this morning or if they were just thinking through similar things. "Me, I'm just... not a dog person, I guess. Nothing dramatic, just… never really liked them. You know me: I'm fastidious and quiet. I don't like loud, messy things that are going to jostle me or start barking their head off because they thought they heard the mailman. How about you?"

Yang sighed. "It's… it's kind of hard to explain." She was thinking of Ren's advice, about opening herself up. Blake was someone she trusted, trusted enough to sign a lease with, but even with Blake, Yang knew it was hard to talk about her feelings. But from the look in Blake's eyes, she knew she could try. "Okay, so, my dad got Zwei when I was pretty young, and… it was kind of a big deal, you know? I had a lot of big girl responsibilities all of a sudden, and I really wanted to prove I was up to the task."

"It is cute to imagine," her girlfriend murmured, "a little Yang, racing to keep from getting dragged behind an excitable dog."

"My dad has photos. You come visit him in Patch, you'll see them." She smiled. "Like it or not. My dad took a _million_ photos of us when we were kids." _And he's just counting down the days before he can show you all of them_, she mused. "But the thing is, having Zwei wasn't just a thing about being a grown up. It…"

Blake gave her a reassuring look as Yang blinked away the tears forming in her eyes. Even now, even with Blake, she still had a hard time talking about this subject.

"I used to have a lot of anger about my mom," she added, softly, feeling the way Blake's grip slightly squeezed her hand as she said it, "I still do. You know that. But it was… it was really bad when I was, like, 13, and I kept getting into fights and looking for excuses to start fights. I was in trouble _a lot_, and I had to go to a psychiatrist, and he…"

"It's okay," Blake put an arm around her, "We can talk about this later, if it's too much for right now."

"No, I… I kind of just want to say it, out loud." She gave Blake a weak smile, and received a comforting squeeze on her shoulder. "Dr. Ozpin told me that, when I got mad, first thing I should do was go take Zwei for a walk. To, like, disengage and stuff, and then I could decide what to do. And Zwei _really_ liked that, because he got to go on a _ton_ of walks," she smiled as Blake snickered at that, "No, really, a _ton_ of walks, but… I always felt better, you know? It was hard to be mad around Zwei, and… it always felt like he really got me. Like, he didn't judge me for being mad and he always listened to me-"

Blake cocked a wry smile. "You used to talk to your dog?"

"Is that weird?"

"No, it's… it's kind of sweet." She blushed, slightly, then whispered, "I used to talk to a tree when I was really little."

Now it was Yang's turn to snicker. "Oh, your hippy parents must have _loved_ that."

"Mom _still_ calls me to let me know when my Friend Tree starts to bud in the spring. But… I'm sorry, I'm interrupting. Keep telling me about Zwei."

Yang shrugged. Learning about Friend Tree was absolutely worth it. "There's not much more to it. I spent a lot of time with Zwei when I was mad, and he made it a lot easier to handle being mad. Even without walking him, after a while, I'd just see him and I felt… " Again, her voice trailed off, emotion tightening her throat and stinging her eyes.

Blake completed her thought in a soft voice, "Like you had someone who'd never leave you."

"Blake, I don't mean that you'll, I mean-"

Blake snuggled up next to her. "I know what you mean, Yang. And I'm _not_ leaving, but… I know that maybe," she sighed, then fixed her voice resolutely, "maybe a dog could be good for us. We can… we can go to a shelter. And meet some of the dogs. And we can see—and I am not making any promises—if any of them will… get along with me."

Yang moved over to kiss her, gently, and smiled. "We'll find one you'll love. I promise."

"Just something that isn't loud, rambunctious, or messy."

"Don't worry," she grinned, "I said we'll find one you'll love—so we'll just have to find one that's exactly like me."

Despite her obvious best efforts, Yang sure didn't miss how Blake had smiled at that.


End file.
